FacePalm Friday
Welcome to this week’s edition of FacePalm Friday.
This is where your hosts will list their top picks for this week’s FacePalm moment—something they learned or read about this week that caused the FacePalm to happen (you know, the expression of embarrassment, frustration, disbelief, shock, disgust or mixed humor as depicted in our Rally FacePalm smiley).
We invite you to add your FacePalm of the week to our comments. Go ahead and add a link, tell a personal story, or share something that triggered the FacePalm on the subject of child welfare or adoption.
Your Host’s Selections:
(1)Utah Attorney General Makes Gay Adoption Harder
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/01/utah-gay-adoption_n_4876815.html
But scum agencies can steal babies!
(2)JCICS conference call
http://www.againstchildtrafficking.org/2014/03/jcics-conference-call-adoptions-gone-toxic/
(3)Blogs supporting CHIFF
http://www.honeybunchesoflotz.com/2014/03/chiff-i-support.html
Maybe if you drank some of this
or
or
you could understand this tortuous post(4)Ukraine
“Many girls in Ukraine who don’t get adopted end up in prostitution, human trafficking or in the drug trade.”
(5)India fundraising
http://www.wset.com/story/24926284/lynchburg-couple-raising-funds-for-international-adoption
“To check out their blog, click HERE.”
Is it just me, or is the banner on the ‘Honey Bunches of Lotz’ blog rather appalling? It shows the parents leaning in to kiss each other, while each holds a little boy by the ankle in their arm farthest away from each other, dangling both of them upside down?
Yes, I know some kids enjoy being held by a parent upside down in play, but such play usually involves the child being held more securely (and more comfortably) than by one ankle. This kind of play also usually involves the parent and child laughing, smiling, and you know INTERACTING with each other. It doesn’t involve the parents smooching while ignoring the child each is “playing” with.
The whole composition doesn’t suggest play at all anyway. The kids are held way from the parent grasping them at disdainful length, as if they were dirty diapers which the parents didn’t want to foul their clothes with. Yeah, I get that this image is meant to be humorous, but the “humor” depends on showing the children as annoying/dirty/disobedient brats whom the parents handle as objects, reserving all of their affection for each other.
Now, I understand humorous exaggeration for effect, but that the PAPs see nothing wrong with representing their children in such a dehumanizing way in their blog banner is troubling. It’s also troubling that their “target audience” also is willing to give this couple money to adopt ANOTHER child, when they present their existing children in this way.
And a little girl of another race from DRC to boot. If they already feel that they literally “have their hands full” with their two boys under the age of three whom they’ve had since infancy, how in the world can they possibly handle adding a toddler (by the time they bring her to America) to their family? A toddler who’s been psychologically traumatized by losing everything and everyone she knows to boot.
I hadn’t seen that blog before so I had to go look to see what I thought. Yes, I think that’s a crazy picture and doesn’t give the impression of love. I also get that it’s supposed to be humerous, but it doesn’t strike me that way, not as an AP, or as an adoptee. Not only that, but the most recent post gives a timeline of their adoption and indicates that the birth father’s family wanted this baby and they fought to keep this baby from them. It looks like they aren’t allowing any contact either as she called contact by the first Aunt Creepy. That bothers me so much.
dmdezigns,
PAPs who are fixated on “rescuing” kids by adoption don’t let little details like the fact that the child already HAS a family stop them. The birth family’s not as good as THEIR family will be, so it doesn’t count.
As for their DRC adoption… they received a referral for a healthy six month old. What are the chances that baby is actually ethically available for adoption? As much as 10%, do you think?
Some judges would see the perilous dangling as child abuse if the adult doing the dangling gave DNA to the child. Poor, vulnerable parents get the rap for child endangerment over one mistake.
Good point– though I think the younger boy IS theirs by birth.
But if white True Christian™ couples do it, it’s usually NOT child abuse or endangerment by definition. If a black, Latino, or Native American couple did it– sure! Or a poor white couple, especially if they’re unchurched and unmarried.
Though the Justina Pelletier case shows that even relatively-affluent white couples can be targeted on a whim… especially if they’re not True Christians™.
Did you catch her overly simplistic explanation as to why Congo has suspended adoptions?
http://www.honeybunchesoflotz.com/2014/03/the-drc-adoption-situation.html
If you’ve decided that Jesus told you to buy a Congolese kid, well them, clearly you’re entitled to buy that Congolese kid… ethics be damned!
I will never ever understand how PAPs that insist they are adopted from DRC to save a child from lack of social services 100% trust those very same social services to verify the kid they want is genuinely in need of a new, foreign family.
Yes, kids acting up when a sub is teaching totally equates to kidnapping people’s children and selling them for overseas adoption. /sarc
Why let the fact that you wasted a ton of other people’s money by giving it to AAI stop you from begging for MORE money to re-start your adoption with a shiny new agency?!?
“UPDATE ON THE AGENCY FIASCO:
We have signed with a new agency that we feel good about! A deal was made that resulted in us losing NONE of the money we have already paid! {Enter Arsenio Hall barking!} They are already working hard for us. They have our dossier in hand and it should go to the consulate Monday, which means we should be DTC (Dossier to China) in just over two weeks. They feel pretty confident we will be able to expedite several more steps (PLEASE KEEP PRAYING). We did lose some time, but we are really really hopeful that we can make that back up.
SEE YOU SATURDAY!!!!”
http://growingwests.blogspot.com/2014/03/faqauction-items.html
Why not brag about having blown $60k on unproven attachment (Nancy Thomas), neuro reorganization, etc therapies including “intensive attachment camp” with an unlicensed therapist has “saved” your adopted child?
8
http://letunfold.com/2014/03/13/what-worked-what-didnt/
Because it’s a terrific idea to put a smart, capable 6 yo on house arrest and deprive her of ALL choices — including what kind of cereal she wants for breakfast!
“And people are not going to understand when I insist that she not speak to adults unless spoken too, when I pull her out of most social things for the next few months, and keep her within 6 feet of me at all times. We have to clear the decks and focus on super basic stuff. No choices – that means none. I pick her food, I pick her clothes, I decide what we are doing and when we are doing it. She has been controlling – in many ways – her environment. And that is not something a child needs to do – or should do. She needs to learn to trust that I can keep her safe – she doesn’t need to be hypervigilent and ask be a frillion questions about every activity. I got it. I need to tell her and show her: I got it. You can be a kid. I got it. You are safe. You don’t need to know what the schedule is for the next 3 days in detail. I got it.”
http://letunfold.com/2013/10/26/attachment-camp-long/
It is so very ironic that the families who insist a supernatural being is telling them to adopt somehow fail to re-evaluate *what* said being wants them to do when fundraiser after fundraiser flops.
http://lovejer2911.blogspot.com/2014/03/taxesgod-will-make-way.html
I’ll give the “let unfold” mama credit for one thing– she recognized that pursuing a second adoption was the wrong thing to do when her existing daughter was so high needs.
Now if she can just learn to get her psychological information from people who use peer-reviewed science rather than psychological terror tactics…
You do have to love a PAP who feels that getting other people’s KIDS involved in begging for cash to adopt a kid they clearly cannot afford is a terrific idea.
Taking money from little kids’ piggy banks. BARF:
Our latest fundraiser is underway! It is called Change for our Ladybug. I came across this idea from this blog post. I was perusing the internet scouring for fundraiser ideas. I came across this blog post and read about this family’s idea of “piggy banks”. I knew this would be an easy fundraiser to do plus it would be something the kids could do. Our two oldest kids and the kids in our church are always wanting to do something to help bring Esther home. This was an easy way for them to do just that…
…That night at church we had several of the kids come and tell us that they had already been hard at work looking and asking for change. Some even looked under every cushion, furniture, and every crevice they could to find spare change. I know this isn’t some grand fundraiser, but it is something simple that the kids can do to help us bring her home. I know how helpless our two oldest can feel sometimes when they want so desperately to help out and can’t. They have friends that feel the same way. Now they feel as if they are making a huge contribution to bringing Esther home, and indeed they are.
I am looking forward with great anticipation to seeing their big smiling faces that Sunday morning as they bring in their jars of change. It doesn’t matter how much is in their jars. It doesn’t matter if they forget to even bring them. What matters is that they are taking an active role in bringing our daughter home. They are taking a stand in a very simple way to help one little girl join her forever family. Now that is something significant.”
http://ajourneyoffaithhopeandlove.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/change-for-our-ladybug/
Is it just me or is it truly wretched when adoption blogging has a Dickens plot line, complete with little urchin who are not properly equipped with a tin cup.
I propose a contest. Devise a fundraising adoption blog title based on the works of Charles Dickens. It would be ironic since Dickens actually funded charities to help fallen women in need.
Dismal,
Re: “…adoption blogging has a Dickens plot line, complete with little urchin who are not properly equipped with a tin cup…”
That’s why illegally-procured photos from Reese’s Rainbow are so important to keeping the Adoption Machine running to maximum profitability. Donors are more likely to give to PAPs who can show a picture of a kid who they’re “trying to bring home”.
Therefore private adoption agencies– who set fees at what the market will bear– can charge a lot more. Since PAPs are playing with house money, they don’t turn a hair at fees that would discourage them if they were limited to their own resources.
And sending countries can get in on the racket and charge more fees and requires multiple visits in-country before finalization, which is a boost to a poor economy. The net result is that parents who COULD have financed their own adoptions before this inflation wind up reluctantly turning to crowdfunding– which feeds the vicious cycle…
This thing is coming crashing to the ground sooner or later… it’s just a matter of when.
Is it wrong to be super-duper excited that idiotic bloggers like Children Deserve Families will likely get international adoptions shut down waaaay faster than actual reform efforts ever could??
http://childrendeservefamilies.com/call-action-adoption-tax-credit-threatened/
What’s happened in Crimea is appalling, Russia should not have been able to annex a great big chunk of Ukraine, but I am teeny-tiny bit excited that several utterly irresponsible, unprepared Reece’s Rainbow families will not be able to purchase Crimean kids they likely would have killed/disrupted within mere months:
So much for Julia Nalle’s prayers/advocacy:
covenantbuilders.blogspot.com
http://childrendeservefamilies.com/news-adoptions-halted-crimea/
Is the Adoption Tax Credit actually being ended… or only allowing it to be claimed for ANYTHING except adoption of America’s waiting children from foster care?
I’ve tried to Google, but the results are swamped by sites bewailing the effects of NOT indirectly subsidizing private adoption agencies.
BTW, many of the sites are complaining that 55% of IRS correspondence audits “were closed with no changes”. Frankly, I feel that a 45% rate of tax “irregularities” in claimed Adoption Tax Credits is nothing to crow about.
On the Facebook page for Congo APs/PAPs, one of the biggest topics is the adoption tax credit. They have ALL been audited, apparently. We were not, but then again, my husband sent in copies of every single receipt pertaining to our adoption that we had, just in case (even though it isn’t directly asked for), not one of these parents has sent in any receipts, “because the irs doesn’t ask for any.” And they wonder why they’re audited.
It’s unlikely any adoption agency will provide receipts to adoptive clients when those adoptive clients are instructed to bring cash to a foreign country to pay fees.
Some might call this not-optional “donations” bribes and I don’t see a line on a schedule A to itemize cash donations to some undocumented charity in foreign country.
The PAPs fundraising usually have their donations funneled to the NFP agency who applies it to the adoption fees.
No surprise the IRS is auditing.
Follow up article on the vile practice of re-homing:
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/adoption-follows/
Sarah Basile is totally convinced that a supernatural being destined her 3 adopted Ukrainian girls to be sisters/her daughters. Because deity totally needed these girls to lose their first family/language/culture to be adopted by an Evangelical mommy who may or may not decide these munchkins are too mujch bother to keep. Suuuure!
“‘m so thankful that the Lord chose these 3 to be sisters! Watching their relationships blossom is such a beautiful thing! I’m thankful that through adoption they’ve not only found us (and we-them), but also that they’ve found one another! My 3 beautiful girls’ hearts are growing inseparable! ”
http://angeleyesadoption.blogspot.com/2014/03/sisters.html
Last Mom adopted daughter “Princess” has been threatening to kill herself, refusing to go to school for weeks at a time (with amommy’s blessing) and has had no therapist for 2+ yrs – as Last Mom decided that no therapy is better than bad therapy for the girl who had been placed in RTF for psychiatric reasons for several months before she adopted her.
Last Mom’s self-proclaimed trauma mama friends are praising her for taking great care of her girl and that she as a mom (who is not a licensed doctor or therapist) is all the therapy her girl needs:
http://lastmom.com/mental-health-services/
You do have to love APs who insist that homeschooling their adopted kids is the way to go — how better to keep your kid away from those pesky mandated reporters??
What happened to Hana and Emmanuel Williams?? A one-off, according to Scoopy!
Her latest Facebook claims that her oldest adopted child (the one she’s hoping to send back to Ethiopia to live with her bio family bc the girl is miserable in Scoopy’s family and there was, according to Scoopy herself ” fraud” involved in the adoption) loves being homeschooled. By the amom she dislikes and is demanding to leave):
Facebook.com/scoopingitup
Oh look, yet another Reece’s Rainbow family that fundraised 100% of their adoption costs is in-country, in Ukraine and begging for more cash from strangers in order to be able to complete the simultaneous adoptions of two unrelated, high needs special needs kids:
http://amillionstepstosergey.blogspot.com/2014/03/another-wrench.html
If a supernatural being TRULY wanted the Harlins to acquire these boys, don’t you think it’d just deposit $$ in their account?
You’d think PAPs would realize that major geopolitical instability is going to have a detrimental impact on processing paperwork smoothly.